UNENDING FUEL QUEUES: FIERCE STRESS TEST FOR NIGERIANS
Ayo Olukotun
"Does it bother the government that when the prices of oil go up in the world market as currently, ordinary Nigerians are not excited?" – Ayo Makinde, Channels Television, Journalist, Tuesday, March 1, 2022
There are several depressing mysteries about Nigeria, not the least of them, how a relatively tiny political elite is able to keep an otherwise voluble and expressive populace under conditions that mimic modern forms of slavery. In the days of military rule, the scholar and activist, Ruth First, expressed a similar quandary when she asked why it was so easy to dismantle an African state with only a rag tag militia, making a pre-dawn broadcast and announcing another coup d'état. The days of the military as unprepared rulers are happily gone in most of Africa, certainly in Nigeria, but the poser remains, as to a fundamental legitimacy problem, whereby election after election, the country does not resolve existential problems.
For a month now, to bring the point home, several cities and towns across the country have been grounded by a ferocious fuel supply crisis which has almost reverted existence to the Hobbesian state of nature. The harvest of the continuing ordeal is sorrowful and bitter. Ever lengthening fuel queues, replete with drama, fisticuffs and occasional deaths. There also is the surge in price which converts the fuel supply chain into a black market, the torrent of explanations, excuses and so-called assurances by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, among others. Take the last variable for example. At first, the reason for our woes was given as the accidental importation of contaminated fuel from Belgium, itself a mystery, in view of the plenitude of quality assurance facilities in both the source and destination of the degraded PMS. However that goes, we were told not to worry because in a matter of days, the situation will be back to normal. More so, as the Corporation has 1 billion litres of safe fuel which is being unleashed on the market. What more, there is an additional 2.3 billion litres in transit, which is more than capable of normalizing the situation. Additionally, NNPC informed there would be round-the-clock activities around its depots in order to bring the situation fully under control. So, the country waited to see these assurances materializing, but there were a few doubters, including this columnist, who wondered whether this is not another elaborate ruse and hanky-panky staged to achieve, through the backdoor, an imperious increase in the price of PMS. At any rate, the empirical situation worsened in proportion to the so-called assurances which at some point included an apology for the ugly mess.
Furthermore, if we do a content analysis of what government officials have said, they do not amount to much. In a normal functioning democracy, if the groans of citizens and their wailings get this loud, high state officials, including the president, will be up and about ensuring that the situation does not go from bad to worse. Also, that there is alleviation and even sanctions for those who threw the country into this protracted nightmare. No, not here. Our leaders do not have the time or patience to root with the electorate who put them in office or to maintain a semblance of the social contract, which stipulates reciprocal duties and obligations between them and the governed.
Factions of the political elite are busy, apparently, preparing for the next general election, which may turn out to be no more than another elaborate chicanery which will tighten the noose around the necks of the populace. You may then ask, even if politicians are running around the country in search of power, are they also tongue-tied not to be able to, at least, empathise with the sufferings of those they hope to lead? Browse the statements of top politicians and marvel at how laconic the majority of them have been about the country's mounting problems. It is as if they have chosen to live in a state of denial, even if the country has been turned into a hell hole. Of course, I'm aware that there is a hypothesis that suffering, extreme suffering, makes it easier to govern a populace too traumatised to ask incisive questions from their leaders. It may well be, therefore, that most of the politicians don't care a hoot about how nasty things get given that there would be less critics who are asking uncomfortable questions. Obviously, this cannot be the reasoning of a proper and decent lot since too many people would have died in the political furnace that the country had been turned to. To understand this kind of absurd calculations, one must be familiar with Prof. Achille Mbembe's theory of Necropolitics in which death itself, even if on a large scale, is weaponised as a political resource provided there are trophies and victories for those who seek to lead or are actually leading. Let us, however, return to the more conventional and simply say that is the NNPC aware that the disconnect between their promises and grim reality regarding the fuel situation breeds a crisis of distrust and cynicism concerning everything governmental?
True, many years of broken promises and campaign manifestoes not remembered have created a populace disaffected and alienated because of the tissue of lies of the politicians. Nonetheless, continuing to say one thing while another reality prevails can only deepen the alienation of the people and the disorder on the streets. To give an instance, PMS officially sells for something like N165/litre but in today's bizarre market, it is gotten for, when you are able to find it, between N200 and N500 per litre. Even the marketers have complained that they are not getting it any longer at N165/litre, querying the logic of those who insist that they are selling far above the official price. What remains unclear is whether the current anomaly was anticipated, merely contrived or it's an accident, whose consequences are very much with us. Whatever the situation, our leaders, if they still listen to us, should know that the hardship of Nigerians for which reason, the removal of fuel subsidy mandated by the Petroleum Industry Act, was put on hold by 18 months. If the government is displeased that its policy, which has a human face, has been flouted, why is it not showing displeasure by sanctioning those responsible? Why is it that it is the House of Representatives, and not the Executive, that is more concerned about getting to the root of the matter even if one understands fully well that any so-called probe does not have more than entertainment or titillating value in the circumstances. Would there also be a probe into the circumstances of those who have died in the elusive search for fuel or whose lives were terminated because help arrived too late?
Undoubtedly, and aside from the anticipated private sector refineries, the thorough answer is for government to bring our refineries up to par, in order to eliminate the oil importation bazaar that has grounded Nigeria. In the meantime, leaders who care enough should take responsibility, restore a deteriorating situation to normalcy, sanction those who brought us this far, and get the country out of the mess in which it is currently swooning.
- Professor Ayo Olukotun is a director at the Oba (Dr.) S. K. Adetona Institute for Governance Studies, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.
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